Shamash, under various
forms A, who is the consort of Shamash, Nannar or Sin, Nana, Anunit,
Ishtar, Innanna or Ninni, Nina, Nin-mar, Dun-shagga, Gal-alim, Anu,
Nin-gish-zida, Nin-si-a, Nin-shakh, Dumu-zi, Lugal-banda and his consort
Nin-gul, Dumuzi-zu-aba, Nisaba, Ku(?)anna, Lugal-erima(?), Dagan, Ishum,
Umu, Pa-sag, Nin-e-gal, Nin-gal, Shul(or Dun)-pa-uddu, and
Nin-akha-kuddu.

Regarding these names, it may be said at once that the reading, in many
cases, is to be looked upon as merely provisional. Written, as they
usually are, in the ideographic "style," the phonetic reading can only
be determined when the deity in question can be identified with one,
whose name is written at some place phonetically, or when the ideographs
employed are so grouped as to place the phonetic reading beyond doubt.
The plan to be followed in this book will be to give the ideographic
reading[24] as provisional wherever the real pronunciation is unknown or
uncertain. The ideographic designation of a deity is of great value,
inasmuch as the ideographs themselves frequently reveal the character of
the god, though of course the additional advantage is obvious when the
name appears in both the ideographic and the phonetic writing. It will,
therefore, form part of a delineation of the Babylonian pantheon to
interpret the picture, as it were, under which each deity is viewed.

En-lil or Bel.

Taking up the gods in the order named, the first one, Bel, is also the
one who appears on the oldest monuments as yet unearthed--the
inscriptions of Nippur. His name is, at this time, written invariably as
En-lil. In the Babylonian theology, he is 'the lord of the lower world.'
He represents, as it were, the unification of the various forces whose
seat and sphere of action is among the inhabited parts of the globe,
both on the surface and beneath, for the term 'lower world' is here used
in contrast to the upper or heavenly world. Such a conception manifestly
belongs to the domain of abstract thought, and it may be concluded,
therefore, that either the deity belongs to an advanced stage of
Babylonian culture, or that the original view of the deity was different
from the one just mentioned. The latter is the case. Primarily, the
ideograph Lil is used to designate a 'demon' in general, and En-lil is
therefore the 'chief demon.' Primitive as such a conception is, it
points to some system of thought that transcends primitive Animism,
which is characterized ra